Beam me up

According to Mr Spock: 'There are always possibilities.' Maybe that's why science fiction is so popular. Humanity has a thirst for driving itself onwards and upwards and that's what Star Trek is all about: imagining a future where we all get along, work as a team and use the technology to push past the final frontier.

The universe of Star Trek has beamed into Britain with both the imminent release of the latest movie, Nemesis, and the opening this week of an enormous exhibition in Hyde Park; the biggest expo seen there since the Great Exhibition of 1851. Sadly, the captain's log is nowhere to be seen but the 675 authentic props combined with costumes, models and the chance to sit in the captain's chair should still prove a massive draw.

Inspect a gadget

One of the exhibition's central themes is gadgets. Transporters, replicators, phasers, positronic neural pathways; the future's technology imagined for us through five TV franchises, an animated series, ten big-screen outings and countless books.

But this science fiction is not pure fantasy. Just remember, those communicators so fondly used by Kirk, Picard and others are pretty ordinary compared to the latest mobile phones.

According to William Shatner in his book Star Trek: I'm Working On That, creator Gene Roddenberry knew that unless there was 'real' science behind the show, viewers would hit the off switch. And since Kirk first appeared in 1966, much of it has become a reality.

Currently, a hypospray-style device is being developed that will allow injections to be administered through the skin without the use of a needle (a technique used by Trek doctors since the first series).

Nanotechnology - robotics on a microscopic scale - could soon be used to create tiny machines able to enter the body through pores to perform surgery on damaged organs. And developments in robotics and artificial intelligence have led BTexact Technologies to predict that by 2030 robots will become physically and mentally stronger than humans. The likes of Data are on the way.

And what of the transporter machine? In 1997, Anton Zeilinger of Innsbruck University succeeded in making one. His team managed to destroy tiny light particles and then form exact replicas three feet away. OK, it's not exactly shifting humans, but it's a start.

The warp factor

The holy grail of all Trek toys, though, is faster-than-light travel: the warp drive. Einstein would argue it's impossible, the speed of light being constant and unbreakable. Others disagree. While Marc Millis, a space propulsion scientist at Nasa, concedes warp speed is unlikely, he says it's not impossible.

'It's complicated,' says Millis. 'Warp is basically about controlling and channelling the enormous, destructive energy caused when matter and antimatter meet. The latter is positively charged electrons, called positrons, but they're very hard to find.'

And while they have been manufactured, Millis points out it would cost $100billion for every milligram produced. In the long run, the cost is likely to be the most prohibitive factor. But, according to Star Trek, money has ceased to exist on Earth by the 24th century. Well, anything's possible, isn't it?